SÃO PAULO — Brazilians will elect a president in a closely contested runoff election on Sunday. “There are two proposals on the table in this election,” said incumbent Dilma Rousseff in her final remarks during last week’s televised debate.

Her centre-right challenger, Aécio Neves, echoed the line, shoehorning as much space as possible between their two visions. In reality, Brazilians have one proposal before them, with two slightly different versions to choose from.

SÃO PAULO — President Dilma Rousseff remains locked in a tight race against her second-round rival Aécio Neves with less than a week before Brazilians head back to the polls to pick a president in a 26 October runoff.

The CNT/MDA poll, which surveyed 2,002 voters over the weekend, suggests the two remaining presidential candidates are technically tied within the poll’s margin of error of plus or minus 2.2 points.

Rousseff, candidate for the leftist Workers’ Party (PT), would take 45.5 percent of votes if the runoff were held now, with Neves, centre-right Brazilian Social Democracy Party (PSDB) candidate, at 44.5 percent.

SÃO PAULO — Police in Brazil have arrested a man they say has confessed to killing at least 39 people in a four-year killing spree in the central-western state of Goiás.

Tiago Henrique Gomes da Rocha, a 26-year-old security guard at a hospital, was arrested on Tuesday in the state capital city, Goiânia, and has, according to police, confessed to at least 39 murders which targeted women, sex workers, gay people and homeless people.

Local police chief Deusny Aparecido, who headed a task force investigating at least 15 murders over the past two months, described the suspected serial killer as a “cold” person.

Our producer and host in this edition is Sam Cowie, a freelance journalist based in Recife.

Our guests are….

Ben Tavener, a freelance multimedia journalist based in Sao Paulo – he’s Brazil correspondent for the Anadolu news agency, and also contributes for the BBC, Al Jazeera, Mashable and others. He’s also a podcast regular.

Leo Macario, a film scholar who holds an MA in Communication and Culture and a PhD in Comparative Literature. His main areas of research include Brazilian Cinema, Carnival music in films and Film and Literature. Léo is Brazil podcast regular, based in Rio de Janeiro.

And Lucy Jordan, a freelance journalist who lives in Brasilia with her dog. She is Brazil correspondent for VICE News and her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Independent, GlobalPost and others.

We hope to be on iTunes pretty soon. If you are an independent journalist…

SÃO PAULO — Disappointing levels of investment, confidence and competitiveness means Brazil’s economy will barely grow this year, according to a key report by the International Monetary Fund published on Tuesday.

The October edition of the global lender’s flagship World Economic Outlook report slashed its July estimate of 1.3 percent to 0.3 percent, which, if confirmed, would be the second worst performance by the Latin American economic powerhouse since 1998.

Currently the world’s seventh economy, Brazil should grow more in 2015, the report says, but still less than previously predicted, revising down a previous estimate of 2.0 percent to 1.4 percent.

SÃO PAULO — The remaining two candidates in the Brazilian presidential race met with campaign teams on Monday to plan negotiations to secure rivals’ supports and redraw political battle lines ahead of the runoff on 26 October.

Sunday’s first-round vote saw incumbent and leftist Workers’ Party candidate President Dilma Rousseff take 41.5 percent of valid votes, but center-right Brazilian Social Democracy Party candidate and market favorite Aécio Neves performed unexpectedly well, finishing in second with 33.6 percent, forcing a fourth consecutive runoff between the two parties.

Former environment minister Marina Silva, running for the Brazilian Socialist Party (PSB), placed third with 21 percent of support, meaning elimination from the race.